ROOFS AND PUDDING CAKES

Taliana had found out one of Ilyan’s secrets. Three weeks later, she discovered another one.

Her cousin poked her awake one night. “I found him!” Twigly hissed.

“Not again,” Taliana moaned, pulling the blanket over her head. “Last time, you ditched me, and I almost got killed.”

“Not the pyromancer, you nit-wit,” said Twigly. “Green-Vest Guy. He’s here. At the shelter.”

Taliana sat bolt upright. “What? Why?”

“Don’t know. He’s meeting with the grand matron.” The grand matron oversaw the shelter’s operations. She was a kind-hearted, well-intentioned woman, though the stress of her position often made her irritable.

Taliana followed Twigly until they reached a hallway bordering the grand matron’s office. Twigly gestured to a small hole in the wall where Taliana could eavesdrop.

“. . . mighty good of him,” the grand matron was saying. “I know I say to tell him that every time, but really, we would have to close our doors without his support.”

“I will make sure he knows,” said a voice Taliana recognized as belonging to Green-Vest Guy. “But that’s not the only reason I came by. The benefactor heard about your roof issues. He wanted to know how much you would need to repair the whole roof.”

“The whole roof?” the grand matron said. “Dearie, dearie. I haven’t even sought out a quote for that, it’s been so out of the question. Probably around a hundred and eighty shekels. But that’s an enormous sum. I couldn’t dream of asking—”

Taliana heard the familiar clink of silver in a large bag.

“Here’s two hundred,” Green-Vest Guy said. “If that’s not enough, the benefactor said he’ll cover the rest. Oh—and he said this particular donation is courtesy of the Pyromancers’ Guild, of all places.”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Thank the stars! I’m sure we won’t need this much,” the grand matron said in between sniffs. “We’ll return any left over.”

“He said that any extra you can use to buy pudding cakes for your residents,” Green-Vest Guy said. “Specifically pudding cakes, mind you. He insisted on that point.”

Taliana smiled, sneaking back to bed. She had heard enough.

*****

AN ACCOUNTING

Two weeks later, Taliana showed up to Ilyan’s shop with a box of pudding cakes.

“This is quite the surprise,” Ilyan said, selecting one. “Wherever did these spring from?”

“The funniest thing,” Taliana said. “A mysterious benefactor paid for our shelter to buy cakes for everyone. We had quite the party last night to celebrate our new roof.”

“Hmm,” Ilyan said, turning to walk back to the mixery.

“Master,” Taliana said.

Ilyan stopped and turned. “Hmm?”

“Thank you.”

He shrugged. “There’s work to be done. We need three batches of—”

“I wasn’t finished.”

Now she had his full attention.

“My cousin and I have been following your friend, the man in the green vest. It appears he manages a charity fund, receiving donations from well-to-do shopkeepers and passing them along to institutions for the poor.” She shuffled her feet. “We . . . ah . . . may have snuck into his office yesterday and glanced at his ledgers.”

“Hm-mm. And what did you find?”

“Master,” Taliana said. “You are single-handedly funding half the homeless shelters in the city. Half.”

He winked. “Still want me to cut my prices?”

*****

TWO-FOR-ONE SPECIAL

Taliana only had a month left in her apprenticeship when a large crate arrived from Larrisa.

“At last!” Ilyan said as soon as the courier had left. He eagerly opened the crate, which was packed with grain to protect whatever was inside. Reaching in, he pulled out a new triple-beam balance.

“No more double-weighing!” he announced, seemingly even more excited about that prospect than his apprentice. “No more approximations! No more sub-par results! We’re back in business, Talietta.”

Something caught Taliana’s eye. She reached into the crate, fishing around in the grain until she pulled out a second triple-beam balance. “They sent us two!” she said in surprise. She looked at Ilyan. “Did you order two?”

“Of course,” Ilyan said. “That one is yours.”

“M—mine?” Taliana stuttered.

“You’ll need one when you start your own shop,” Ilyan said. “Typically you can get a loan to cover most of your up-front costs, but few bankers will finance a two-thousand-shekel scale that most ‘experts’ would label overkill.”

“But it costs a fortune!” Taliana said. “Two thousand shekels!”

“They’re getting cheaper over the years,” Ilyan said. “And the manufacturer gave me a two-for-one special. I think this one was only seventeen hundred.”

He didn’t get any farther before Taliana wrapped his legs in a hug.